Hi, I’m a web designer and I’m part of this really niche group of people using an unknown micro blogging tool called Twitter.

Is that enough sarcasm for you? Well Twitter has changed the way I communicate and opened up lots of opportunities for me to meet and learn from some really great individuals. The design community has taken to twitter especially well, meaning that there are literally thousands of similar people to me, sharing all sorts of great information.

Well I thought I would recommend the people I gain the most from and tell you exactly why you should consider following them.

Mark Boulton is a designer based in Cardiff. He has recently written some excellent web design books and has been undertaking the huge job of redesigning the Drupal interface.

Mark posts a great deal on Twitter. Most of his posts are his personal thoughts but he does sometimes share other great content he has found. Mark is a very gifted designer and following him and his ideas can only be a good thing. It has been for me!

Chris Spooner is widely known for running Spooner Graphics, a web design blog that i suggest you check out. Chris has also recently launched Line 25 which is shaping up to be just as successful.

Chris mixes his tweets between personal insight and content sharing providing his followers with lots of reasons to keep following him. Chris replies to @tweets very quickly making him accessible for advice etc.

Jam factory is the alias for Gavin Strange. Gavin is a hugely talented designer working at Aardman animations in Bristol. You may also have heard of the ‘droplets’ range of vinyl toys that Gavin designed.

Jam Factory uses twitter to update his followers about his daily life. He posts a great deal of works in progress giving insights into his working processes, which I personally find very interesting. If Jam Factory isn’t posting about his design work he also updates about his passion for bikes and is often asking anyone close to Bristol to join him for a ride.

Andy Budd is managing director at Clear:Left, a user experience based consultancy working out of Brighton. Andy is a prolific speaker at numerous web design conferences and has thus gained celebrity status within the industry.

Andy tweets about his working life. As an individual who would one day like to run my own agency, I find it of great interest hearing about Andy’s working processes. Andy also tweets some excellent opinions on all things web based. He is regularly socialising out and about in Brighton and often extends invitations via twitter.

Carl Martin is an up and coming personality within the mobile industry. Carl is a hugely enthusiastic individual who believes the future of the web is mobile and he makes a compelling argument for it as well. He can currently be found working within Redweb, a Bournemouth based digital agency.

Carl’s tweets are both personal and resourceful. He uses twitter not only as an educational resource but as a networking resource. He replies to @tweets and is very happy to share great stuff. Carl also manages to put some of his ‘humour’ in a few posts…

In Grace’s word’s she is “A 26 year old Freelance Web and Graphic Designer in ? with web standards and social media. An unashamed Apple Fangirl.” Grace is from Northern Ireland and runs a small design agency called Postscript 5.

Grace posts a good balance of both personal tweets and resourceful ones. On a Thursday she runs #themethursday where her followers decide upon a theme and Grace finds and posts all manner of related articles. Grace is also a keen advocate of #followfriday.

Hey, thanks a ton. I am a 30 year old designer working at a sign shop for $12/hr. Right now there isn’t even enough work to keep me busy for 25hrs / week! Even when there is, it is mostly vinyl production. I hope to get in with some people higher up in the design industry, so that I can have a more fulfilling career. I don’t mind busy work, but this is ridiculous. Thanks for posting this list of designers, who were successful at finding their niche.